Currently reading: Fiat Chrysler workers strike over £99m Ronaldo football signing
Italian car maker’s links with Juventus FC have encouraged employees to react in anger

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) workers have announced that they will strike against the transfer of Cristiano Ronaldo to Juventus Football Club, which is supported by Exor, the same investor as the car maker.

The USB union said that the £99 million fee required to sign the 33-year-old player should have been invested to safeguard the future of Fiat’s future of thousands of people, "rather than enriching only one".

Autocar is awaiting official comment from FCA to confirm whether the strike, which is scheduled to take place from 10pm on Sunday to 6pm on Tuesday at FCA’s Melfi plant in southern Italy, will affect delivery times for the models that are made there, the Punto and Fiat 500X.

At this stage, it isn’t expected to have a major impact because Melfi is just one of seven sites used by FCA and USB only represents a small number of employees there.

However, the union’s response has included some damning statements. It said FCA workers were making "huge economic sacrifices" in the face of cutbacks that have been rolled out under the leadership of FCA boss Sergio Marchionne.

Marchionne has reduced the company’s debt with his aggressive saving tactics, which recently saw him announce a range shake-up to focus on only the most profitable models, the biggest-selling of which are the 500 and Panda.

FCA’s changes shrunk its debt in the first quarter of this year to €1.3 billion (£1.15bn), when operating profit rose by 5% to €1.6bn (£1.4bn).

More content

Goodwood: celebrating Land Rover's 70th birthday

McLaren confirms P1 successor will arrive by 2025

Join the debate

Comments
4
Add a comment…
Morty 13 July 2018

The real reason!

The real reason behind the strike, is probably that the workers at Melfi are Naples fans, and hate Juventus. lol

Bob Cat Brian 13 July 2018

Morty wrote:

Morty wrote:

The real reason behind the strike, is probably that the workers at Melfi are Naples fans, and hate Juventus. lol

indeed. Also the article fails to mention that despite the crazy price tag, his signing is as much a business decision as a footballing one, and that Juventus will almost certainly profit from the deal. 

ianp55 12 July 2018

Fiat Car Workers Strike

After FCA have planned to pull out of volume car production from Italy to sites in Poland Serbia & Turkey it's not surprising that the signing of Ronaldo to Juventus has infuriated the company's workforce, it certainly says something even with the average Italian's passion for football,this crass move by Fiat's holding company has provoked this strike 

Peter Cavellini 12 July 2018

To right it should.........

 This is a silly amount for a near his sell by date Football player, a player whose has avoided Prison by paying back what he owed to the Taxman!, £99,000,000 doesn’t sound a lot in the car industry but it could do a lot for workers and the dependants!